Catching up

Experts to Utah: Climate change is real

Posted by David Roberts at 9:45 AM on 29 Aug 2007

Read more about: Utah | climate | climate change mitigation | politics

If this happened any place else but Utah, it might not be worth noting, but in that state I believe it's progress:

A state blue ribbon task force on climate change stated emphatically Monday that humans are to blame for global warming and offered a slate of recommendations on ways Utah can fight the changes.

Glad that's settled!

This is somewhat surprising:

But one much-discussed option, developing nuclear power, was only on the B list of recommendations by the Blue Ribbon Advisory Council on Climate Change.

Dirty hippies!

Here are some highlights from the "high-priority" options to fight climate change:

* Develop significant amounts of renewable energy resources, with the state having a portfolio of renewable energy, energy development zones, tax credits and incentives for renewable energy, pricing and metering strategies, and research and development on energy.

* "Encourage carbon capture and sequestration technology," in which carbon dioxide from emitters like coal-burning power plants is caught before it can reach the smokestacks, then pumped into an underground storage area.

* "Develop and deploy advanced generation technology," with incentives for advanced fossil fuel technologies that yield a reduction of carbon emissions.

* "Improve efficiency and reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide) at existing electricity generation plants." Tactics could include retrofitting plants to capture CO2, retiring old plants and building new, low-carbon plants.

* Promote combined heat and power distributed generation.

* "Develop and implement aggressive mass transit strategy."

* Reduce vehicle idling and vehicle speed, to cut down on emissions.

* Have the state vehicle fleet take the lead in changes.

* Set voluntary efficiency targets for residential, commercial and industrial buildings.

* Improve building codes.

* Preserve open space and agricultural land, trying to protect forests.

* Promote production of biomass fuel.

Not bad.

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4 Comments | Post a Comment

Jonas

Any chance Gristmill will be reporting on carbon-negative biofuels?

by Jonas at 10:02 AM on 29 Aug 2007

wind and solar?

Not bad indeed, but it does not mention wind and solar energy at all. Isn't Utah a pretty sunny state?

by fermiparadox at 11:57 AM on 29 Aug 2007

Climate Change = More Taxes

Looks like the stupidity has "trickled down" from the national level to state government yahoos.

Now they can pad budgets for everything from "green limos" to junkets to visit the homes of eco-friendly stars and businessmen.

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

by jabailo at 12:08 PM on 29 Aug 2007

not mentioned , tax trade

It's hard to do and I've written it before, but the best and fastest way to make a change is taxes on carbon and reducing taxes on other things. reduce property taxes by 2000 dollars on every priciple residence and tax carbon.

What are we scared of. Don't tax the things that will be here 100 years from now. Tax those things that will be gone if we don't tax them.

we tax 4 trillion in a 13 trillion dollar economy. In that we should be able to find some carbon taxes and reductions in other taxes.

by trock at 12:59 PM on 29 Aug 2007

ADVERTISING POLICY

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